Friday, February 12, 2016

We finished grocery shopping and were heading to the car
with our carts. It’s not that we had
tons of items, but that hubby has to lean on one while he walks.

My husband was a good thirty feet ahead of me with his
cart while I trailed behind with another. With a mind of its own, mine of
course had the wobbly wheels that continually veered off to the left as I tried
to control it.

As I was focusing on my runaway buggy I heard a
conversation transpire between my husband and another lady, but I never saw her.

“Hey, how ya
doing.” Hubby nodded as the lady
walked by.

“I see you let
her out.” She shouted, as if I couldn’t hear her.

“Excuse me! … I’m right here!”Before I blinked she had passed me and the
two of them were laughing.

I am so happy for your visit and hope that you come back
each week to participate in the weekly challenges.God has been faithful and we expect His favor
to abound in the lives of those who chose to Journey with Jesus on Daily Favor
Blog.

You are welcome to leave comments or prayer requests below.All are private. I would love to hear from
you and how Daily Favor has worked in your life.Contact me by leaving a message in the box at
the bottom of this week’s post.

I pulled my cart up next to the car and began my inquiry
about the woman. She was someone from the hospital (I should have known).Finding out who it was I made tracks back
into the store to find Kathy, but like Houdini she disappeared.

Round two in the parking lot was just as surprising.Midway to our car someone ran up to us and
popped me on the shoulder as if playing tag and I was it.Turning around quickly it was our young friend
that we hadn’t seen since Christmas time.Looking back on the situation I know it was God causing our paths to
cross at that exact moment.

Our conversation was across the board with topics from
relationships to computers and everything in between.Every time we see this guy we end up spending
hours in the parking lot gabbing.

The sun was setting and it was getting cold.The only one wearing a coat was my husband. Finally my friend said he was chilly and
walked back to his car to see if he had a jacket in his vehicle.

“I’m getting cold too.” I said subtly to my hubby hoping
he’d get the message and retrieve my coat from our car.He didn’t, but it was nice to know he was all
snuggly warm! (Ignore the underlying sarcasm.)

After an hour talking, our friend began telling us about
a situation he was still struggling with, even though we went through all this
with him months ago.My friend couldn’t
accept forgiveness or love for himself.The thought itself gave me chills, and I don’t mean chill bumps!

Love Me, Love Me Not

Somewhere along our journey in life I believe we all go
through the “not feeling loved” period.As
the Apostle Paul might say, this is an area that I have to “put under” repeatedly,
because it simply isn’t true.

The feeling of not being loved doesn’t mean we aren’t
loved. Although each of us has differing reasons for thinking this way, it’s
still an emotion we battle.

After our friend shared his circumstances, he told us
that his plans for the evening included getting drunk so he didn’t have to deal
with it.My husband and I shared
scriptures with him regarding how he felt about himself, but it didn’t
matter.

Seeing that we were getting nowhere in persuading him, I
felt led to share something extremely personal thinking he could relate his
situation to mine in some way.His response
was that the things that happened to me weren’t my fault and of course I could
be forgiven.I said the same thing went
for what happened in his life, but he would have no part of it.

He knew what the Bible said, but felt it didn’t apply to
him.His story included forgiveness for
all those that had forsaken him and were causing this turmoil, but it didn’t
include himself.

We kept telling him, “People love you. We love you. God loves
you, but you don’t love you!” Over and over he said, “I know, I know … but I
can’t.I don’t deserve to be forgiven or
loved by God.”

Trying to convince him that not accepting the love of God
through forgiveness was like putting the Lord back on the cross saying, “Sorry
Jesus, it didn’t work for me.”

When we
disregard scripture we crucify Christ over and over.He made the choice not to believe. (Hebrews 6:6)

Walking Billboards

Our friend loves the Lord and one would think he’s
practically a walking billboard for Christianity; that’s something we should
all strive towards.

He shares the message
of the cross, continually listens to gospel music, is faithful in church, wears
Christian clothing or jewelry and even boasts faith based tattoos (which is
another matter in itself).

With all those things under his belt there is still
something he’s missed, and he admits it.My friend isn’t walking with Jesus in his journey, because he doesn’t
live what he says he believes by taking Christ at His word concerning love.

A Loving Choice

Before we were created God knew that mankind would mess up
royally through sin, but that didn’t stop Him from loving us.As a matter of fact, God even made provisions
through Jesus that would allow us to be transformed into His likeness so we
could walk the path He set for us.

“For we are His (God’s) workmanship, created in Christ
Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in
them.” (Ephesians 2:10 NKJV)

Look at this same verse using the Amplified translation
of the Bible, which clarifies it a little better.

“For we are His workmanship (His own masterwork, a work
of art), created in Christ Jesus (reborn from above – spiritually transformed,
renewed, ready to be used) for good works, which God prepared (for us)
beforehand (taking paths which He set), so that we would walk in them (living
the good life which He prearranged and made ready for us).” (Ephesians 2:10
AMP)

When we fail to believe what God has said in His Word, we
are making a choice not to believe.When
we don’t believe what scripture says, we are making a choice not to love
God.Pretty scary isn’t it?

To love God is to believe Him.

Remember, love isn’t a feeling, but an action.It is a characteristic of God. As His
children, we have that characteristic living inside us through the gift of the
Holy Spirit.

A way of loving God is to believe Him when He says He
loves us unconditionally. That includes all the bad stuff we’ve done in the
past or present, and what we may do in the future.His love never fails and always forgives.

Rejecting Love

It’s hard for us to see ourselves in a good light as God
does.We look at our past and see the
mistakes, flaws and weaknesses.No
wonder we reject love when it’s presented to us.

However, that’s not how God sees us.He sees wonderful children who have been
cleansed by the blood of Jesus, made whole again, beautiful, redeemed and
forgiven.

Think about these four questions:

1 – If we don’t accept the love of God, how can we ever
tell others about it to carry out His plan?

2 – Are we loving God with all our heart, mind and soul
if we don’t love what He loves (meaning ourselves)?

3 – How is it possible to carry out Jesus’ command to love
one another as I have loved you? (Matthew 22:37-39) The Royal Law in the Bible
doesn’t say, “Hate your neighbor like you hate yourself.” (James 2:8)

4 – How can we journey with Jesus if we don’t believe His
love is real?

“Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does
it mean He no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted,
or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death?

No, despite all these things, overwhelming
victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from
God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our
fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow.Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love.

No power in the sky above or in the earth below – indeed,
nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God
that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35,36, 38,39 NLT)

It Takes Two – Love Me Back

In order for any relationship to work those involved have
to reach some sort of agreement … that is unless you’re a cat.

All the rules go out the window then. If you
own a cat you know exactly what I mean. They love God that’s for sure, but have
no intention of loving us back!

Well, maybe that's not entirely true and perhaps judgmental based on the dozens of
scratches on my arms! (Nope … no clue why I added that bit, it just
came to me.)

Relationship building holds especially true if we are to journey
with Jesus in order to accomplish all God has planned for us. We have to start
doing things His way and loving ourselves is part of it.

To truly be walking with Jesus on our life journey, we
have to be in agreement with Him.The
book of Amos in the Old Testament really brings this to the forefront
concerning the behavior of a believer.I
really like how this is said.

“Can two people walk together without agreeing on the
direction? (Amos 3:3 NLT)

If one person loves and the other one only does so based
on the situation, the whole “it takes two” thing is unbalanced.There is no moving forward along the journey,
because someone has forgotten that grace and favor are part of loving others
and ourselves.You can be sure Jesus isn’t
the one who forgot, so guess who is left?

This Week’s Challenge:

Loving the Me God Sees

I realize that it’s difficult for us to really see
ourselves like God sees us. Nonetheless, we have to try.No, that’s not right … we have to do it.

For the next week or so people will be
sharing special times letting others know how much they are loved by them on
Valentine’s Day.Our challenge this week
will also convey that message, but not the way you think.

The challenge is to believe “somebody
loves me, and that somebody is me.”Besides believing that you are loved by God or anyone else, we need to
love the way Jesus does.Unconditionally
love yourself.

It’s not a sin to love yourself, but is actually a sin not to love what God said was made “good.”As a child of God, grace and favor allows
Jesus to partner with us for the journey.God hears our prayers and cares because He loves us.

Don’t be like our friend who is determined to live without
loving the way God loves based on the way he feels. God will go on loving him
whether he ever comes to that realization or not.

My husband and I really love you, and care about how you
are progressing on your journey with Jesus. It’s our desire that you come to
think of yourself as beautifully and wonderfully made by the Master, created for
good works and to love the life you’ve been given.

This week whenever you hear or say “I love you” to
someone else, I’d like you to make this statement.Repeat it over and over until it sinks into
your spirit and becomes a part of your thinking:

Somebody loves me, and that somebody is me!

“It would be a lonely
life if no one ever said I love you, and knowing that God loves us is
wonderful.But it is so good when God
loves us through other people.” - Aaron Wilburn